Sapa, Vietnam

And for your viewing pleasure:
This lady escorted me down to her tribe- she seemed to think I was going to die without her help- I gave her quite a scare as I jumped around :)
This is a lady from one of the local tribes- she was coming out of the fields and kind enough to let me take a photo of her.
This little girl wanders the streets in Sapa selling pillow cases and bracelets- We have a lot of fun playing together- this usually involves me chasing her. Her english is AMAZING. Hopefully she'll be able to lead tours when she is older.

These boys are doing their job well- watching over the buffalo. I love the umbrella :)

This is one of the ladies who we've been hanging out with- I spent the evening playing with her 7 month old boy. She is from one of the villages that I visited, Lao Chai, about 2 miles from Sapa. She and the other ladies, and girls, come and sell hand made goods to the tourists in Sapa. The boys usual go to school for a bit and then herd the buffalo around in the afternoons.
This was my favorite village- lest touristy, just families living life, working in the fields and whatnot.
This girl is from the above village- and usually much more sullen looking- it was a rare smile I was able to get on 'film'.The girl from above LOVED taking photos with my camera- this is one she took of me, featuring my lovely grass crown, made by one of her friends. Most of the pics the kids took were of their hands, which covered the lense- I tried to explained but . . . oh well . . . :)

So almost a week ago Amy and I crossed into Vietnam. This was after a 12 hour bus that began with a man trying to scam us. Fortunately Amy and I outwitted this poor man (and by poor I mean very pushy and quite mean- really very far from poor) no thanks to the many people who just observed from afar.

One ultra-bumpy bus ride later on the world's most narrow beds we arrived to the small border town of Hekou. We spent the day there and crossed into Vietnam the following day, walking over the bridge. Eventually we made it to Sapa, which is where we have stayed for the past while, trying to get Amy back to her usually healthy self, she's been quite sick for awhile now.

Sapa's been great- we've been here for awhile, so we've built some friendships with a few of the local tribal people- we usually sit and hang out with them in the evenings. Its been cool to find out their real stories- they tend to usually just feed you lines but we've been here longer than most the other tourist stay and they seemed to like us a bit :)

The area is a beautiful mountainous area filled with rice paddies. Its finally cleared up- there was a typhoon on the coast and the edge of it hit us here- just constant rain and clouds. I've had fun hiking around visiting the different villages that are in the area.